Venom had so many strikes going against it from the beginning. It is a Marvel movie not set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony, which has been largely panned for its treatment of Spider-Man (not by me), made it, and now Sony does not even have Spider-Man, which is a good thing. Venom is an island unto himself, and is he a strong enough character to carry a franchise by himself when he was only a fraction of a broader universe? Yes!
Venom is super fun. Tom Hardy wields his incredible talents to play the titular character, and Eddie Brock, the human host to the alien symbiote. From Bane’s memorable darkness speech in the Dark Knight Rises to criminal twins in Legend, Hardy makes the movie better than it has any right to be. He manages to convey the gravity of his situation while constantly eliciting humor from it. This movie did not have to be funny, but it was downright hilarious.
Before Venom came to theaters, a movie called Upgrade with a similar premise hit movies. Basically a man had to share his body with an artificial intelligence personality. I loved that film possibly because it was unremittingly, mercilessly brutal and violent. Venom is an alien that wants to eat people, including his host, but unlike Upgrade, this movie is trying to attract kids so filmmakers couldn’t take the bleak Upgrade route and had to strike a balance between making the situation dangerous, but unsuitable. Making it funny without being dumb was an audacious choice, and it is difficult to be funny. It mainly took the aggravations of daily life then asked how a man-eating alien would respond to these situations. The restaurant scene maybe was a bit much.
Venom also has to appeal to adult audience members such as myself by not pulling a Godzilla (Matthew Broderick version) and being Pacific Rim. You never want to feel bad for long in sci-fi. You want to enjoy the fighting, worry about the consequences if the character that you are rooting for doesn’t win and not feel too much empathy for the other side. Once Godzilla became a mother who lost her babies, the party was over. In Venom, the party never stops even though really awful things happen. The movie is really great at choosing its victims. The dog does not die.
I also loved the villain. Riz Ahmed is a British Pakistani actor, and his evilness is rooted in his ambition, not his ethnicity. He got to play a demagogue CEO, and it never suddenly became a stereotype that could be extrapolated about Pakistani people, which was refreshing. Venom generally has an ethnically diverse cast. Sure the security guard is Latino, and the storeowner is Asian, but they felt like real people who had lives outside of the story that we watched unfolding on screen.
Michelle Williams did her thing and thankfully was never a victim or a bargaining chip so that was a relief. Jenny Slate must have serious bills to pay. She has gone from independent films to sci-fi blockbusters in less than a year. She was better suited for this role than a cop in Hotel Artemis, but I am not used to her switching gears. I’m going to need a minute. I immediately recognized Wayne Pere from Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger as one of the supporting characters with very few lines. Congratulations on getting money!
Visually I thought that the alien special effects were OK, but not elegant. I retroactively understand why everyone thought Life, which I adored, was a prequel to Venom. I secretly wished that it was, and that this film had the same team that did the special effects in that movie. It visually felt more like Spawn with the spiky, angular body structure instead of organic like the evolving alien being in Life. It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the film, but it was probably a weaker aspect of the movie.
I enjoyed Venom as an origin story. The best sci-fi teases our real fears, and we had a healthy mix of corporate exploitation of the poor, lack of regulation, and destruction of opposition with a healthy dose of environmental apocalypse. I was thrilled at how Brock got infected because it was completely plausible, and I thought that the movie was going in a different direction after he suffers a financial setback so it was a bit of a relief. Brock seemed like a real person with a specific type of personality. (Side note: why is everyone a journalist, and even when they are broke, their apartments are bigger than mine? Shouldn’t he have a roommate? Filmmakers need poverty consultants.) The slow burn development of the second villain was exciting and felt like a shout out to the Terminator franchise.
I did not expect that Venom would also have a personality, and the relationship between Brock and his symbiote is gut busting. If you watch The Flash, imagine if Zoom became the devil on your shoulder and life coach. The movie also gives us a little insight into Venom’s society and his place in it, which never occurred to me since I don’t read the comics. Usually aliens don’t get personalities. The mission statement usually defines the alien, but the match between human and symbiote may not be about biology, but chemistry, and Brock’s personable extrovert is an excellent match with his lottery winning alien buddy who is delighted at his newfound improved situation.
Venom is as much an odd couple movie as a comic book movie. Get a big bucket of real butter popcorn and prepare to laugh. There are two post credits scenes, which fell a little flat for me, but only the first one relates to this movie, and it did not excite me since I have no idea who that man was. I fully expect a sequel, but seeing Annie/Carrot Top did not excite me for it.